Meanwhile in Europe

Things have been quiet here since I’ve been settling in Edinburgh, starting a Politics PhD that will focus on immigration and security politics in Arizona.

It sounds weird to go to Europe to study immigration back home, but in the past I’ve found that being somewhere else can give you greater perspective of what goes on at home.

For instance, the biggest migration-related news in Europe since I arrived has been an accident off the coast of Lampedusa, an Italian island close to North Africa that serves as the gateway of many refugees and unauthorized migrants to Europe. Nearly 200 people have died in this one accident.

For me, it’s difficult not to think about the many migrants who die in Arizona’s deserts. A peculiar mix of public sympathy for the migrants and concern about their unauthorized arrival, which is now being noted in the Italian response, is very recognizable from what’s happened Arizona over the past 10 or 15 years.